Stratford’s Raymark cleanup on track as EPA changes guard

Kurt Spalding, Northeast Regional Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks at the site of the old Raybestos Brakettes softball stadium on Frog Pond Ln., in Stratford, Conn. Jan 11, 2016. The EPA plans a $90-million cleanup of the property. Spalding is seen here with Jim Murphy, Team Leader for Government and Community Relations for the EPA. less

Kurt Spalding, Northeast Regional Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks at the site of the old Raybestos Brakettes softball stadium on Frog Pond Ln., in Stratford, Conn. Jan 11, 2016. ... more

Kurt Spalding, Northeast Regional Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks at the site of the old Raybestos Brakettes softball stadium on Frog Pond Ln., in Stratford, Conn. Jan 11, 2016. The EPA plans a $90-million cleanup of the property. Spalding is seen here with Jim Murphy, Team Leader for Government and Community Relations for the EPA. less

Kurt Spalding, Northeast Regional Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks at the site of the old Raybestos Brakettes softball stadium on Frog Pond Ln., in Stratford, Conn. Jan 11, 2016. ... more

STRATFORD — Just about all the pieces are in place for the long-awaited cleanup of the so-called Raybestos waste, with planning work about to begin.

But now the phrase “... but with the Trump administration coming in” is creeping into discussions on the massive $95 million toxic soil removal effort.

Officials locally and nationally say although the federal Environmental Protection Agency will have different priorities a week from now, the money needed to make the clean-up a reality should not be affected when the new administration moves into the White House.

“I’ve been working on this Raymark project for 20 years now — about as long as I’ve represented the district,” said U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., in a telephone interview. “And it would be foolhardy to change direction this late in the game. We’ve already spent millions on this and to end it now would be a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.”

These are disquieting times for advocates of the environment. A global warming denier, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, is Trump’s pick to head the EPA.

This new administration means there will be scores of people in federal agencies who will no longer have their jobs. One of those is Kurt Spalding, the EPA’s Northeast administrator.

“I made a strong effort to get this project in the right place before the change in administration,” he said. “This was at the top of the priority list for (EPA Administrator) Gina McCarthy, (Stratford) Mayor John Harkins and Gov. (Dannel P.) Malloy.”

Spalding spoke to reporters on the site of the former Raybestos Brakettes field on Frog Pond Road, where about half the Raymark waste is being brought. There, it will be capped over with asphalt and clean soil. The rest will be sent to toxic waste disposal sites; one could be as far away as Texas.

“We wanted this to happen,” Spalding said. “Of the talk that people have about the EPA, none of that criticism has been about cleanup programs, which are hugely important on a number of levels, not the least of which is economic development.”

He said Congress has been in favor of cleanup programs. “It means community cleanups and economic development — who could argue with that?” he said. “This is a big project, one of the biggest superfund cleanup efforts going on in the nation.”

“A lot of work was done last year to protect this project to the greatest extent possible against any change in priorities of a new administration,” she said.

Spalding, like DeLauro, was instrumental in seeing the project through. Now that the planning work has begun, he is confident the superfund cleanup will move forward, Trump notwithstanding. McCarthy, like Spalding, will also be leaving her post; she formerly was chief of the state Department of Environmental Protection. She was also instrumental in getting money for the project, officials said.

Raymark waste contains asbestos, lead, copper, polychlorinated biphenyls and an assortment of solvents, adhesives, and resins. Soils containing these wastes were routinely used as fill at the former Raymark facility — where Wal-Mart, The Home Depot and ShopRite are now — and at other locations around Stratford, about 500 acres in all.

Forty-six of the sites are residential properties, and the rest are on commercial and town-owned parcels, the EPA says.

Another site that was cleaned up was the Wooster Middle School athletic field; that work took place in 1995.

Raymark was founded in 1902 as the A.H. Raymond Co., and it soon changed its name to Raybestos Industries. The company invented the woven brake lining in 1906, one of the landmark developments in the technology needed to stop moving vehicles and rotating parts. It later was known as Raybestos-Manhattan.

The name was changed again to the Raybestos Friction Materials Co. in 1978. Beginning in the late 1970s, Raybestos began weathering lawsuits filed by victims of asbestos-related diseases. About that time, it switched to making brake pads and shoes out of metallic and later ceramic materials.

The company changed its name to Raymark in 1982, partly to get out from under the crushing cost of litigation brought by the victims of lung disease caused by inhaling asbestos particles.